Veroniek Maat: Tourism, Inclusion & Dis/ability Research
I have met many travellers, and each encounter deepened my understanding of how disability and chronic illness shape travel experiences in complex and often fluctuating ways.
◦ 10 min readOrigins & Intent
Your career spans frontline hospitality, entrepreneurship, consultancy, and now doctoral research. Looking back, what was the first moment you realised tourism could be a force for inclusion – not just experience?
I can’t pinpoint when exactly I realised, but I know it was quiet early into entrepreneurship. I started Accessible Travel Netherlands in 2010 in order to address accessibility of tourism and make visiting the Netherlands easier for travellers with different accessibility needs. I knocked on the doors of organizations like Holland.com, IAmsterdam, hotel chains and inbound tour operators. I wanted to collaborate with them, communicate and promote accessible tourism in The Netherlands. I soon realised this was not an easy task and I got entangled in corporate structures which were not accessible to a start-up entrepreneur. I was trying to pioneer for accessible tourism, but my vision for a more inclusive tourism offer and industry was not understood and people with accessibility needs were placed into the niche box. I didn’t agree with this line of thinking and tried to convince them otherwise. I did find support from accessibility advocates and other accessible travel agents, but the gap between the world of accessibility and the tourism sector was huge.
These closed doors told me that I wasn’t going to achieve a change in thinking by myself, in this position as tour operator. I needed other entries, collective action. Also, not developing one off situational solutions, but a structural approach to raise awareness and stimulate action top-down AND bottom-up.
You founded Accessible Travel Netherlands in 2010, long before accessible tourism became a widely discussed topic. What gap did you see then that others weren’t yet paying attention to?
I was completing my academic internship at the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute in Auckland. I was being supervised by Sandra Rhodda, who was running the website AccessTourismNZ at the time. I started assisting her with writing articles about accessible tourism. This is when I realised the huge demand for accessibility within tourism. Not only communication about accessibility but also of travel and recreational options themselves. During my 6 years of studying tourism at Bachelor and Master levels, I didn’t hear a thing about this need and gap. I started to read more into it, became a member of ENAT and just never let go.
How did your early hands-on roles – from front office to tour guiding – shape your understanding of access, dignity, and real-world travel barriers?
During my time managing Accessible Travel Netherlands, I organised accessible tours in Amsterdam and the surrounding region, as well as shore excursions and day trips to Brussels. While I occasionally guided tours myself, I most often collaborated with professional tour guides.
Through these experiences, I met many travellers, and each encounter deepened my understanding of how disability and chronic illness shape travel experiences in complex and often fluctuating ways. Being present during tours allowed me to witness how the built environment, streets, hotels, restaurants, and attractions, can either enable or constrain participation. I also became more aware of how factors such as fatigue, pain, or illness can affect travellers’ energy, comfort, and emotional well-being over the course of a day.
Developing these tours taught me to focus less on reproducing standard itineraries and more on creating meaningful, enjoyable experiences that respond to people’s needs, rhythms, and preferences.
In addition, my team and I organised the provision of mobility equipment at accommodations across the Netherlands. This work made tangible the essential role such equipment plays in enabling independence and making travel not only possible, but genuinely enjoyable.
Beyond my work with travellers, I have also engaged with many accessibility advocates with lived experience of disability. These encounters have been, and continue to be, fundamental to how I understand disability. Not as an abstract concept, but as lived and relational. Disability is often shaped by the social and environmental surroundings.
Building, Scaling, Letting Go
Over a decade, you grew Accessible Travel Netherlands into a respected inbound operator before selling the business in 2020. What were the most important lessons you learned as a founder working in a still-emerging sector?
I would say, don’t give up. Second, truly invest in building meaningful relationships with advocates that have the same mission. Collaborate to realise ideas and solutions. Third, walk different routes. I started with consultancy work with regards to accessible tourism and shortly after I started organising accessible travel. Right now, through my Professional Doctorate research position in the Netherlands, I have the possibility to bring the subject to the attention of educational institutes and important stakeholders within the mainstream tourism sector.
How did working directly with disabled travellers change your definition of “luxury” in travel?
I think luxury for travelers with disabilities shouldn’t be any different from luxury travel in general, everyone should be able to experience the same level of service. However, basic hospitality in travel is increasingly becoming a luxury due to the commercialization of every necessity. These days, even having a seat on an airplane or bringing a suitcase costs extra. If tourism continues down this path of hyper-commercialization, where essential services become add-ons, luxury takes on a whole different meaning.
The affordability of travel is already at stake and will become even more challenging for mainstream travelers, let alone for travelers with disabilities. It shouldn’t be considered a luxury to bring your assistive devices, request travel assistance, book an accessible room, or enjoy a guided tour, these should be standard elements of travel.
From Industry to Academia
You’ve since moved into research and are now a Professional Doctorate Candidate focusing on tourism, inclusion, and dis/ability. Why was this the right moment to step into academia?
I was working for the Research Group New Urban Tourism at Inholland University of Applied Sciences when I brought accessible tourism to the attention of the professor of New Urban Tourism and other colleagues. From this, the idea arose to write a practice-oriented book on accessible tourism, which will be published in March in both English and Dutch. While writing the book, I got the opportunity to develop a Professional Doctorate proposal, and I did! It felt like the right moment to step into this 5-year PhD trajectory, as it offers the opportunity to work with both the tourism industry and future tourism professionals within an educational environment.
How does your practitioner background influence the questions you ask as a researcher?
On one hand, I tend to ask very detailed questions because I have experienced accessibility needs firsthand. On the other hand, I understand the perspectives of travelers (though I can’t fully grasp all accessibility or inclusion needs), travel organizers, and suppliers. I ask practice-oriented questions combined with theoretical knowledge of various accessible tourism models and disability approaches.
What do you think academia sometimes gets wrong about accessibility and where can research genuinely accelerate industry change?
I don’t think academia gets things wrong about accessibility, in many cases, people with practice-oriented experience are already involved in publications. However, I would encourage more co-creation and participatory research to deepen our understanding of lived experience. Writings from the perspectives of travellers with disabilities and caregivers would bring valuable and necessary insights to the table. These insights can help academia develop models and tools that enable the tourism industry to improve the quality of accessible tourism products and communication.
Systems, Cities & the Future of Travel
Your current work explores new urban tourism and regenerative placemaking. How can cities balance growth, experience, and inclusion without accessibility becoming an afterthought?
Cities could adopt the ISO standards for Accessible Tourism and Universal Design principles in their policies, which would reinforce the rights-based framework outlined in the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Inclusion ultimately serves everyone, visitors, citizens, and people across their lifespan. Everyone might experience disability at some point in their lives, and by integrating accessibility into the core of the built environment, service design, and product design, we create spaces and experiences that work better for all.
What role do destinations, DMOs, and private operators each play in making accessible tourism scalable – not siloed?
I think destinations and DMO’s have the power to draw attention to the private companies and individuals who advocate, implement and promote accessible tourism. There are many small scale operators who’s work can be highlighted by DMO’s who have a huge outreach online as well as offline during tourism events. Additionally, DMO’s can not only enable and empower accessible tourism providers, but also bring together all actors involved for creating truly inclusive destinations; people with lived experiences (also including locals), tour operators, travel agents, local guides etc.
If accessibility were embedded at the design stage rather than retrofitted, how different would our tourism ecosystems look?
Important is that all actors involved are included at the design stage, so it becomes a co-design stage. In that case, accessibility and inclusion would be addressed much earlier and tourism products would be better fitter to a much wider audience.
Leadership & Impact
You’ve worked across Europe, industry networks, and education. What does leadership look like in a space that requires collaboration rather than competition?
I think for me it means recognizing all voices, while understanding no single stakeholder holds all the knowledge. It involves actively and over a duration of a longer period of time, creating awareness and bringing together industry, education, research and lived experience of people with disabilities and their co-travellers. I’ve been trying to understand different perspectives, translate theoretical knowledge practical easy to apply tools for students and tourism industry facilitators.
What responsibility do experienced professionals have in educating the next generation of tourism leaders about inclusion?
I think they hold the power to educate the next generation of tourism leaders. However, we should first continue to raise awareness and built knowledge amongst the current tourism leaders. Awareness is not always there yet. The book I have written is for everyone currently working in the tourism industry, as well as students (the future tourism professionals).
When progress feels slow, what keeps you optimistic about the future of accessible tourism?
Positive accessible travel stories from travellers or people close to me. New innovative collaborations between within the tourism industry (for example between mainstream tour operators and accessible travel specialists). Lastly a recent new development; a get together organized by a minister from Economic Affairs who brought together the majority of stakeholders in the Netherlands involved with accessible tourism.
Quick Fire
Coffee or tea – and where are you drinking it?
Coffee at Inholland University of Applied Sciences in Rotterdam where I have been working for the past 4 years. Preferably with my colleagues from tourism research or education.
City break or countryside escape?
I love both, but a countryside escape with my daughters, family or friends is most fulfilling.
The most underestimated European destination for accessible travel?
Rotterdam 😉 The city where I live and work.
One travel myth you’d love to retire?
One travel myth I’d love to retire is that accessible tourism is a niche. In reality, accessibility benefits a far broader group than is often acknowledged, it’s relevant to many of us at different moments in our lives.
If you weren’t in tourism, what would you be doing?
I would have been working for a care institution or disability rights advocacy group. I could have also been deeply invested in a certain direction of psychology. I also loved my situational tour guiding jobs in Italy and Spain, I’d love to be a tour guide again in the future.